This poem expresses frustration at the inability to fulfill one’s dreams. The eleven-line poem uses word play and symbolism to express an overwhelming sense of frustration. Using questions to guide the reader deeper into contemplation, Hughes uses symbolism and similes throughout the poem to present the reader with graphic images. Food symbolism appears more than once in the second stanza, symbolizing that dreams, like perishables, may be good at first but change when ignored, whether for better or worse. The symbolism of the raisin in line 3, drying in the sun, symbolizes the power of a dream, like the sweetness and flavor in a grape, condensing and becoming more concentrated.
Various images aid the reader in the depiction of the brilliant theme in this outstanding poem. Furthermore, the numerous effective metaphors used in “I, Icarus” compare to the subtle message the writer attempts to get across. This is why a thorough understanding of these essential poetic devices is absolutely crucial in order to interpret the meaning of the poem: reaching for your dreams and going where nobody has gone before. In conclusion, Wayne Gretzky once said: “You will always miss one hundred percent of the shots you don’t
| Normally, this repetition would mean a reader could remember this point, but here, we sense the author’s embarrassment which he reveals by “tell[ing] them [his friends] that it’s a Guinness”. | anecdotes | Author personalises his account by including anecdotes about the BBQ skill of Australians. “I’ve seen newborn babies suckling…while reaching toward the Weber… holding a match”.Second story – “ ‘It’s gas, just turn the bloody knob.’ ” | Normally anecdotes position the reader to respond emotionally and accept the truth of the author’s point. Here, the author uses such a ridiculous story that it serves to highlight the underlying argument – that BBQ skills are another construction of ‘typical Aussies’. These are stereotypes.-the second anecdote adds dry humour to the situation | Inclusive language | “I can’t even light a BBQ.
Although Price’s essay is fleeting, its audience will surely grasp a good idea of how she views American culture. Right off the bat Price recognizes the intrepid aspects of hotels, businesses, and their clientele’s choice to promote the flamingo as a sign of “…leisure and extravagance.” (Price, line 19) The bird represented pizzazz, and was bright pink. Further in she also ties the ripple effect from the great depression. Those marketing techniques may have only been so successful, because America had a generation emerging from the great depression that grew tired of dim, dysphonic, and depressing colors. A combination of flashy pastels and an expanding middle class eager to invest in new technologies previously reserved for the wealthy shot that generation in to a new culture.
This is how this piece of poetry got its name, because it captures the audience’s attention from curiosity of how the title relates to the poem. As we look at these series of similes, we find out what those affects are because, with each question the speaker offers a possibility of each negative effect. The first one “Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun”: a raisin is already dry, and as a raisin, it is a good thing, useful and nutritious, but if a raisin is left in the sun to dry up, it becomes hard and impossible to eat; its value sucked out, it no longer serves its useful, nutritional purpose. If the dream does not dry up, maybe it will “fester like a sore—And then run.” The dream that festers becomes infected with the disease of restlessness and dissatisfaction that may lead to criminal activity, striking back at those who are deferring the dream.
Happiness achieved in Brave New World is phony. They achieve happiness not through actually feeling it, but with soma. Whenever they start to realize the reality of Brave New World and get upset about life, or don’t understand things they take soma. They do not experience real happiness. It is just a drug able to drown away ones negative feelings.
Although the poem identifies “myself” as Walt Whitman, the identity of the speaker is also mythic. Instead of trying to say how unique his feelings and thoughts are, Whitman emphasizes his own self. His ordinary self is so comprehensive that he absorbs each American, past, present, and future. This comprehensive awareness makes the speaker of the poem greater than himself, but it is greatness that he emphasizes to us as readers. Whitman's poem is really long it has a lot of symbolism, imagery, descriptions and whatever else you can name.
Cummings are united by themes of hopelessness in the face of loss. In “Harlem” Hughes examines the scenario of a dream being thrown off track, whether by conscious choice or by some outside force. Throughout the poem, he uses rhetorical questions to answer the original question: “What happens to a dream deferred?” Hughes suggests several possible outcomes for a dream that has been deferred. He first likens the dream itself to something commonplace—a raisin, a sore, meat, or a sweet—and then proposes what would happen to these things should they be ignored. An unattended raisin will shrivel and dry, a sore will fester and run, meat will rot, and a sweet will crust over.
Stephany Garcia Professor Sexton English 1302.059 18 March 2013 Rough Draft “Theme in Poetry” Natasha Tretheway’s poem “White Lies” is an ironic poem used to explore the meaning behind it through a childhood memory. On the same memory, Gregory Orr uses a straightforward strategy to incline the blunt meaning of his childhood memory and uses a wuicker pace throughout it. They both show the struggles they had as children and explore the meaning through their innocent minds. As the flashback in Tretheway’s poem shows more than one example of memories it provides us with more information inclining her point of view in her “white lies”. Orr, uses just one memory, on the contrary.
“Harlem” Poem “Harlem”, by Langston Hughes, uses a combination of dramatization, rhetorical questions and similes to stimulate the audience’s interpretation on the actuality of each object and how it is being used to defer dreams. The way the similes are being expressed gives the impression the speaker is very concerned with unresolved dreams. The poem itself discusses and questions what actually happens to the dreams many people put off. Most people in life have many dreams but whether the actually pay attention to them or not is the answers the question. The speaker is, in a sense, stuck between the first and the last line.